Mike on Mnemosyne 1 – There’s No Sex in Violence?

Oh yes there is. Yuri S&M, too! And zombies! Horrible inhumane experiments! A tough detective girl who shouldn’t be messed with. And all in a double-feature episode, just like Grindhouse….in Greek! (The title that is.)

My compatriot Ray has already reviewed this show, and I mostly agree with his review: it’s gripping enough with relatively few action scenes, and offers a fairly typical mix of various anime genres. The feeling is, as he said, like that of a B-movie–a well-choreographed and directed one, at that.

What’s with the lousy alcohol in this show? Everyone spits it out except her

Admittedly, Mnemosyne really isn’t all that original. It sticks out from the current season mostly because this sort of show hasn’t been done in a while, and one figures that’s why it’s actually an OVA of sorts, with its unusual 45 minute running time. It feels startlingly old fashioned with its blatant fan service (but not of the moe kind), blood that is actually red, the secret Evil Corporation Conspiracy Plot…if anything, this is most reminiscent of Bubblegum Crisis without the futuristic, cyberpunk elements. In fact, the fact that it’s set in 1990, something which doesn’t seem to affect the plot all that much yet, is perhaps a reminder of how very late 80s-early 90s this kind of anime actually is. It’s something that were the animation not so fluid and detailed, could have fallen straight out of that time period’s OVA offerings. The biggest reminder really of more recent time is the recognizable voice of Rie Kugiyama playing the pink haired Mimi–and she’s not even a tsundere! Truly, this is a pre-post-modern anime. :)

A Nintendo Power Glove!!! Now I KNOW it’s 1990

I was impressed with the way the show paced itself evenly over 45 minutes, a time length that I wish more anime would adopt. Yes, I know, it’s not really possible given the cost and especially with decreasing budgets and numbers of releases overall. But I think many shows would benefit from the hour-long drama format, especially ones that want to build up character and more complex plots. In this case, unfortunately, we do have to wait a considerable amount of time between each episode and I hope that doesn’t blunt the audience for this show–I liked it well enough, but it didn’t end on a heart-throbbing cliffhanger but rather on a fairly tidy episodic ending. I’m sure there will be a single plotline to follow given the set pieces that have been put in place, and the number of questions to be answered.

I’m not dead yet! Only a flesh wound

This is good old fashioned “adult” entertainment, the kind of thing that people used to go to grindhouse theaters to watch. It won’t win any awards for depth or emotional resonance anytime soon–the green haired protagonist is a bit flat as a character (not, as we can obviously see, physically!) and the memory theme promised by the title seems more like a loose organizing principle than anything else. It’s definitely “R” rated, though compared to some anime it’s actually rather tame, and I actually suspect that this is going to get licensed for US release sometime soon: it’s the kind of anime that historically does better in the US anime market than, say, any number of moe harem romances. Since Ray’s covering this primarily, this will probably be my last post on the matter–I just wanted to get back into blogging for a change :)–but I’ll be keeping an eye out for anything else interesting that this show might offer.